Topic: The Nintendo Switch Thread

Some people are so pessimistic.

We don’t know what Nintendo has planned for 2018 yet. They’ll unveil details for the first 6 months in January (which might be slightly underwhelming from the perspective that there probably won’t be a single huge new game there) and then in June we’ll find out about what their plans are for the end of the year (which will include at least one big release).

They run a tighter ship in regards to leaks these days, they clearly have a very strong marketing plan for Switch and they’re bringing the full weight of their development teams behind Switch.

For better or worse we’ll see what that means in practice when Nintendo decides its the best time for us to know.

@Octane At least they got #1 right.

Persona 5 being so low boils my blood, though. The game is a modern classic.

Xenoblade Chronicles 2 deserves far more recognition than it's received.

I think it's the best video game I've played in 2017, and let me tell you I played a lot of good video games this year.

@JaxonH Ye, it's wonderfully involving. Love it

Now that I can agree with. Remember after the October reveal and January Direct? How many titles in those two events did people underestimate. A lot of people were saying Zelda wouldn't be a launch game. Heaps of people were saying that the third party games shown like Skyrim wouldn't look anywhere near as close to "home console" graphics as they did in the trailer. If we got them at all. As you said everyone doubted Xenoblade would come out, the same people were saying that Mario game was 2018.

But pretty much everything we were shown is now out. Everything in the first reveal trailer, the vast majority of the stuff in the January direct. In addition to Doom, LA Noire, Rocket League, Mario & Rabbids and Pokken Tournament which we didn't (officially) know about at the time. Everyone, even the optimists like myself, underestimated how many games the Switch would actually be able to deliver.

We're sitting in a similar situation now. We know about games like Yoshi, Kirby, Bayonetta 3, Metroid Prime 4, Pokemon and most people are assuming that the big games aren't 2018 releases. They couldn't possibly be right? When did they have the time to develop them! But some of them will come out next year. They can't all be delayed, they can't all be very early in development. There will be some major releases on the Switch next year.

@skywake How much footage of the games that came out this year had been shown, though?

I think it's only natural to think that Pokemon and Metroid Prime 4 will come out later rather than sooner. Pokemon was announced merely with a "We can confirm it has begun development" and Metroid Prime 4 only got a logo. These are not signs of games coming out anytime soon.

@skywake Wasn't a lot of the underestimation with the October reveal and January presentation games due to rumours though? Like with BotW, there was the big rumour about BotW not being launch because Mario Odyssey being the big launch title instead.

@Harmonie Fire Emblem Switch "Got a logo" - 2018

Fire Emblem Warriors for new 3DS was shown for about 30 seconds. Game still came out.

Wolfenstein 2 - No footage, 2018.

DOOM, about 10 seconds, few months later it releases.

Pokemon was announced with "We have begun development". What does that mean? Well it could mean it started yesterday, or 25 years ago for all you know, because all they said was "It's in development". Never specified.

Remember Pokemon is typically announced with "It's practically done buy it in 6 months".

At the same time, Fire Emblem Warriors showed no gameplay on Switch and it released 6 months later.

And the main series Fire Emblem was given even less than Metroid Prime 4- not even so much as an official name or logo. Yet they said that game would be 2018.

Not to say I think Metroid Prime 4 and Pokemon are coming in 2018. But it's certainly within the realm of possibility.

Doesn't matter what you think of it, it's still one of the largest gaming websites. It was also one that predicted Switch would have a tough road ahead of it so at least they're happy to admit they got it wrong. With IGN and Gamespot also putting Nintendo games at the top of the pile that's a huge win for Nintendo that will only help make Switch sales even stronger.

Fair call but I think my point remains. People still seriously underestimated when these games would be coming out. Also how well they would perform if/when they did come out. I distinctly remember some people trying to argue after the October reveal that all of the footage was canned because it was added to the screens in post. Sure some of that was the tail end of the Wii U era Nintendo scepticism but as I said even the optimists underestimated where we'd be now.

Aren't most rumours nothing more than forum chatter anyway? I seem to remember before launch one of the more persistent rumours was that we'd see ports of Wii U titles. Nothing about Mario before the October reveal from memory. But a lot about us getting almost direct ports of Smash Bros, Mario Maker, Breath of the Wild and Mario Kart with BotW being the big launch game. So there were rumours for just about every scenario.

Anyways, of the games we haven't been shown much of I think we'll see Bayonetta 3, Fire Emblem and Pokemon next year. Fire Emblem was announced too early for it not to be pretty far along by now. Pokemon is an annualised game at this point and I think they'll hit their target. Bayonetta 3 I'm pretty confident about mostly because they're releasing ports of 1 & 2 in February. Doesn't make much sense to build hype now by releasing 1 & 2 if 3 is 2 years away.

But Metroid Prime 4 I think we only know about because Nintendo wanted to show that all three of their big franchises were coming to the party. The Wii U didn't get the Mario people wanted, it got it's own Zelda on the day its successor launched and it didn't get Metroid. Nintendo being able to stand up at E3 and say the Switch has Zelda, it's getting Mario soon and Metroid is in development? That's a big deal. Which is why I don't think it's very far along.

I don't think we will get Prime 4 next year. The "now in development" at E3 seems to me that the game just got out of pre production, or we would have had some footage to generate hype.

@skywake Well Fire Emblem was given a 2018 date anyways. We just don't know when in 2018. Wouldn't be surprised if it gets a proper unveiling as one of the spotlighted games in the January Direct.

What's interesting here is that Nintendo usually doesn't like to announce games more than 6-8 months in advance, but they've definitely gone against that lately with Pokemon, Metroid Prime 4, Bayonetta 3, SMT V (technically that's Atlus, but it was announced at Nintendo's event), and Pikmin 4, which was just casually announced in an interview. I think Pokemon and maybe Pikmin 4 will launch first of the bunch. Bayo 3 I think will be a Spring 2019 title, with Metroid later in 2019. SMT V could easily be a 2020 title knowing Atlus.

@IceClimbers
At the same time they can't all be 2019, 2020 titles. With the exception of the tail end of the Wii U era Nintendo typically publish one "major" release every month across both of their platforms. And "major release" is arbitrary, I just don't think stuff like NES Remix, Badge Arcade or Wii Fit U really counts. Either way there has typically been a fairly regular flow of releases from Nintendo.

So far from what I can tell we can be pretty confident of 4 games on 3DS/Switch for 2018. Two of them (Kirby on Switch and Bayonetta 1 & 2) being confirmed as early 2018 releases. If Nintendo are keeping up their usual pace for releases? There are about 8 games for 2018 we don't have confirmed yet. I think it only makes sense that some of those 8 will be one or more of the 6 Switch games we already know exist.....

@skywake That said, we do know that some 3rd party releases ends up counting towards this number like how for November the major releases were Skyrim and DOOM. Hence it makes sense that games like Octopath Traveler will count as a major release in 2018.

I like Destiny 2 but it absolutely does not deserve to be that high up. Also I don't really get ARMS at 6? I mean, it's a good game, but not the 6th best of the year.

My 2017 - '2 good, 2 bad':

Good:

• Switch: It's easy to forget that 'the worlds most powerful home console' launched this year - why? ..because the Switch stole all the headlines! An incredible (and welcome) return to form for the Big N - and a brand new way of enjoying games as well! Thank you, Nintendo - thank you so, so much!
• The games: We were positively spoiled for choice on the gaming front this year, weren't we? Wow! Just wow! ..it's like we got 2 years worth of games in the space of just 10 months - and I now have a backlog that could comfortably see me through 2018! _{..not just Nintendo either - all platforms did pretty well! ..even Xbox got, umm, like, uhh - hmm - Cuphead, I guess - so, yeah, erm, that's nice}

Bad:

• Loot boxes: Boooo!
• Gaming journalism: Not all journo's, of course - but it's kind of funny how a huge gaming platform like IGN can give the Switch (as a console) a pretty negative initial review and a score of just 6.7/10 - then just change their tune in the face of some astonishing sales figures. What was it that they 'weren't getting' exactly? ..not just IGN either - GameSpot didn't like the Switch, Eurogamer didn't like the Switch (etc. etc.) - then a few million sales later they do all of a sudden? - c'mon! **face palm**

Can I add you@NaviAndMii

@NaviAndMii can you add me

Looks like Amazon has some new Switch preorders, they're only placeholders but gives even more signs towards a January Direct.